Rhys hadn't been exaggerating how busy he would be. He was essentially playing three identities at all times. It was exhausting work, especially while still being present for Tierney. He had even asked his brothers Soren and Renwick to help him out. Mostly, he wanted them to pose as him to be seen so no one would put together what his identities were. He created a necklace that was filled with glamour magic that would make them look like him when they wore it under their clothes.
They didn't do much other than mingle, because he didn't want them in the line of danger. He was okay putting himself in that danger, but not anyone else outside of The Shell. He knew what he had been signing up for. He didn't want his brothers to deal with the dangerous side of it though.
The times he wasn't able to get away long enough to see Vasile, he would leave letters in his room for him. He never signed his name, but Vasile knew his handwriting. He always put a D at the end, for the nickname that Vasile loved to call him. On the days where a letter was on his desk, Vasile quietly but excitedly closed the door and sat down to read it. He read slowly and deliberately, as if he were savoring each word individually and together with the rest of the sentence.
On those days, he carefully placed the letter in a hiding place he had been using since he was a child and went to bed happy, dreaming pleasant dreams of more kisses. At some point, he devised a code that allowed their correspondence to appear to simply be chatter and shared it with Rhys on one of his rare in-person visits. There was some struggling at first to master the code but before long neither of them needed to take the time to decode a letter, sight-reading the coded message along with the written message.
Rhys loved that they could now write what they truly wanted to instead of just updating each other about what they were doing; something he wasn't even allowed to do right then. A lot of Rhys' letters were about what his life had been like while he was gone, but also just how much he had missed Vasile, and how he hated being away from him.
Vasile tried to take it easy on his messages, coding them as if he were leaving messages for the room attendant regarding the cleanliness of his room and which clothes he would require. He still managed to say quite a bit about his day, however. He hoped Rhys wasn't struggling too much to catch up on his backlog of letters, but he still guiltily couldn't stop himself from indulging in as much communication as he could manage.
He was also completely incapable of hiding his much-improved mood from his family and other denizens of the Capital city. His closer siblings, Nik and Aisling, knew exactly what - or rather who - was responsible for the change in Vasile's mood, but they swore themselves to secrecy and even joined him in trying to prep their parents for the inevitable revelation that Vasile had blood-bonded.
Rhys was generally in a better mood too when he was at home. Even Tierney noticed and commented on it, and Rhys smiled at her and told her that he was catching up with a good friend who he liked a lot. He could explain more to her later, once they had things figured out. He wasn't fooling anyone else though; everyone in his family knew who had put the smile on his face.
The only thing that could cast a shadow on their happiness was this coup. A few vampyres had come back to court after traveling for a while, and one of them was Rhys' second identity: Roland Andras, son of Baron Andras. When he had last been at court, he had been a very arrogant and cocky man. What Rhys knew about him now was that his travels had humbled him quite a bit, but no one at court knew that yet. He had given permission for Rhys to use his identity to infiltrate with. So for now, cocky and arrogant he had to play.
Most of the people who had come back didn't bother Vasile any. They were polite and respectful enough to him, but something about Roland Andras bugged him. The few times now that they had run across each other, Roland had looked at the royalty like they were a pest or something. He had made comments about how high and mighty the royals acted, though in front of the Queen and King he was nothing if not politic.
It killed Rhys to have to act that way, but it was the only way to get noticed by the people doing the coup. If they eventually told him to cool it, then he would, but he needed those that were against the crown to see that he didn't hold it in particularly high regard. The only good thing about it was that no one in the royal family would ever have guessed it was him, especially not Vasile.
Unfortunately for Rhys, Roland's vocal criticism of the royal family (not to mention the ruling class) led to a multitude of false leads. Rhys was actually shocked at the frequency with which Roland was approached, both privately and otherwise, by commoners and nobles alike to commiserate about his viewpoints.
He took the time to really hear them out, and later took notes about what he was told. He may have been working to stop the coup, but if the public, commoners and nobles the same, had problems with how things were going, then he wanted to look into that. It might be the only way to make sure this didn't happen again later. He took notes in a notebook at home with codes as to who had told him, what their social class was, and then just plainly wrote what they had said. Eventually, he would make a copy without the code for who told him to give to the royal family.
Rhys needed to adjust how he was handling things, but not to an extreme degree. Changing his behavior too fast would cause people to notice in the wrong way. So he very slowly shifted the way he was acting, from being as overt and obvious, to being more subtle about it.
Vasile noticed the subtle jabs though. The worst part is that some of it, which Rhys had taken from other people who he had spoken to, hit way too close to home. It was jarring when it happened, because Roland would smile right after the comment and walk away or move to someone else, and Vasile couldn't even argue with him because what he had said wasn't
untrue
. It hurt Rhys to do it, too, but it was necessary. He just hoped Vasile would forgive him for it one day.
Vasile was more than a little concerned about how popular this Roland fellow seemed to be. The Spymaster reported that the man had more invitations for meals than he could possibly answer in five years with more piling in. It was a little alarming to Rhys as well, but he found that many of those invitations were from people who were simply frustrated with the way things were going right then. Some of them, much like his own family, had bastard children who were treated like less than people, and it bothered them that the royal family did nothing about it.
Many dhampyr bastards had come to him as well, talking about their own bullying they went through; things that easily mirrored Rhys' own experiences. It hurt to hear it, partly because it triggered memories Rhys had pushed deep down into the recesses of his mind where he was sure they were locked away enough not to hurt him anymore. Mostly, though, he hated seeing those younger than him dealing with the same issues.
For a little bit, though, Rhys was worried that this wasn't going to get him what he needed. It was helpful to learn all of this, but it would all be for naught if the royal family was killed in the end. Of course, Rhys would do almost anything to keep Vasile alive, even if it was at the expense of the rest of the royal family if it came down to it, but he wasn't going to walk down that line quite yet. That would only happen at the last minute if he had no other choices.
The more subtle approach did, eventually, lead him where he wanted to go. Roland had earned himself a very sought after invitation to a dinner with people who were on his list as people to watch just in case. They were some of the highest families of nobility in the land of Arcasias, and it was exactly where he needed to be. It was also telling that not a single member of the royal family had been invited to this event.
